


Scarab

by orphan_account



Category: Pentatonix
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bugs & Insects, Gen, Horror, Kidnapping, Never knew a christmas song could get so creepy huh, Other, Paranormal, Psychological Horror, Songfic, Sugar Plum Fairy - Freeform, Time Skips, sort of, there is actually a little bit of mavi and scolex sorry fam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 18:02:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6481231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knew them. They were the weird kids. They had their own lunch table, never talked to anyone outside their five person group. They didn't seem to own anything that wasn't black. They were all said to have come from the same family but no one could exactly place where they came from, where they lived, where their parents were. But no one touched them. Everyone knows what happened if they got you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scarab

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one shot that I wrote like...a year ago and was originally on wattpad (my dark days) and I still kinda like it. I also watched VIXX's Voodoo Doll a couple (dozen) times tonight so maybe I'm just feeling creepy as hell.

Alex watched from his table of geeks in the corner of the cafeteria. It was the one place where the teachers couldn't catch them using their phones during school hours because no one could see around a pillar support that was at the edge of the table. They always had to sneak phones during class in this strict school that was as far north in Maine as you can get without crossing the border to Canada.

"Alex? Ally?" Small, red-haired, and eccentric Jake was snapping his fingers in front of Alex's face. "Stop staring. They'll steal your soul." Alex couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"Do you realize how ridiculous you sound?" He scoffed as he fixed his snapback for the millionth time and pushed his wavy brown hair back under it. "They're human, contrary to the popular superstitions in this town. They can't do anything to me. They don't even notice me."

"Why would you want them to notice you? Although, I will admit that some attention from tall, blonde Daddy over there would not be such a bad thing..." Alex's friend Meg decided with a mouthful of food. She was the lady of the group.

"Scott? He has a permanent scowl. What could he give to you?" Jake piped up.

"I'd take anything," Meg nodded. "Just look at that stubble...."

"You're disgusting," Alex said, reaching out and closing Meg's mouth after seeing a fantastic view of her chewed hamburger. "And stop...sexualizing them or something. It's weird. Just because they don't act like us doesn't mean they aren't human too."

"My mom said that you shouldn't look into their eyes, because they suck all your soul and personality out through your pupils until you're as dead as them. And even if you're left with a fragment of your soul, you end up as nervous and skittish as the black guy," Jake whispered. Meg and Alex blinked.

"Jake, your mother is on crack," Meg said firmly.

"She is not!"

"She is kookoo!! Someone put her in a clock!"

"She was telling the truth!!"

"God, Jake. Sometimes you're so gullible I want to smack you in the most violent yet loving and adoring way."

Alex tuned his two best friend's bickering out as he turned back around to watch. They were all dressed in black. The little blonde girl, Kirstin, was wearing a black blouse and the same dark makeup she always did with her pale lips set in a bored line. The "Daddy" that Meg was obsessed with was wearing a simple cardigan and leaning over into the small brunette with perfect bangs' ear and whispering something very intently. Alex vaguely remembered the brunette from his trig class earlier in the semester; his name was Mitch. Kevin was sitting there twitching and watching the cafeteria with shifty eyes as normal, though the last one, Avi, wasn't even blinking. He stared straight ahead, not even batting an eyelash when Mitch leaned over and searched through the zipped pockets of his leather jacket for a sharpie. None of them even bothered to try paying attention to the world around them.

Alex had zoned out until a flicker of movement had caught his eye. He looked up to see that Avi was staring straight at him from all the way across the cafeteria. Alex's heart skipped a beat, in the absolutely terrified oh-my-god-help sort of way, but he couldn't bring himself to break their eye contact. Slowly, Kirstie stopped her work and looked up, straight at Alex. Mitch and Scott stopped too and joined the other two. Alex could feel that he was in his own mind and knew what he was seeing, but his arms felt detached and his legs felt paralyzed. When he saw Kevin start to move as well, Alex snapped his head back down to look at his lunch tray and the feeling faded away.

"And that's what I said to my mom except she still still won't give me back my car keys!!" Meg finished. "I think that is complete bullshit," she said as she dipped five fries as a time into her ketchup and looked to Alex for agreement.

"Uh...yeah yeah. Complete bullshit...." Alex spent the rest of the day feeling numb and confused as of he has just woken up from a nap he never intended to have. Only when he got home later did he remember Jake's story.

They next morning, Alex arrived at school early to help with tutoring (table of geeks, remember?). He ran parked his car and took a deep breath. Maybe Jake's mom was onto something. Ever since that eye contact with Avi and being stared at by the rest of those creepy kids, Alex had felt exhausted. He couldn't sleep the night before because he was too consumed with thoughts of who they were, where they came from, where all these myths came from. He couldn't understand why the town was so afraid of some high school kids that happened to be creepy looking.

When he finally built up the energy to trudge into school, Alex looked up only to see their car parked right across the lot. Avi was in the drivers seat staring straight a head at him and Kevin was beside him, nervously licking his lips and fiddling with his fingers. Alex's limbs felt like heavy jello and little goosebumps rose up on his arms. He didn't take his eyes off Avi until he lost sight of him inside the building.

Alex stopped in the bathroom before going to help with tutoring. He splashed cold water on his face and proceeded to get it all over the sink as well in an attempt to wake himself up. "Well that's not like the movies..." He muttered. He looked up into the mirror. "And they aren't like a movie either. You aren't insane. They aren't insane. It's just...tension and coincidences," he told himself in a shaky voice. "You're not in any danger and you're completely overreacting," Alex nodded. He dried his face off with his sweatshirt before returning to tutoring and the rest of his classes for the day.

As the week finished up, Alex felt better. After many nights of restless sleep, he had actually gotten a couple hours of sound sleep the night before. He walked into his Friday morning classes with a ridiculous grin and a happy attitude that made even Jake aggressively flick his giant jovial head.  
"What is up with you?" Meg asked at lunch. She sounded confused and slightly disgusted.

"I don't know!! I just feel amazing!!" Alex grinned, eyes wide and sparkling. He constantly looked like a a little kid who had just one the fluffy unicorn that was bigger than them at the carnival. He couldn't stop buzzing and chattering. The group across the cafeteria was the last thing on the bouncing boy's excited mind.

The day passed with some very terrified (or was it confused? Alex couldn't tell. Maybe both) faces from Meg and Jake but Alex didn't seem to be phased by a single one. He practically skipped home and sleepy soundly for another night.

When he woke up, Alex knew that everything had changed. He was sweaty and panting in -20°F weather where there had been snow on the ground all winter. He ripped his shirt off and rushed downstairs, past his confused mother, who was very surprised to have a half naked teen run through her house at breakfast time, and out into the snow. Even the intense cold didn't help counter the heat that Alex felt crawling under his skin like gnawing bugs. He groaned and scratched at his arms furiously until they were red. At some point, his mother came out and pulled him back in, because the next thing Alex knew, he was on the couch with a heated blanket on his lap with his mom in the chair across from him. "Wh...what happened?" Alex mumbled, glancing over at her.

"I have no idea," she shrugged. "You seemed to have a...fit in the snow." Alex frowned in question. "You kept yelling something about bugs and burning? And it was like you couldn't even hear me when I was right next to you. You were inconsolable..." She explained. Alex nodded slowly and pulled the blanket over him closer to his chin. His mother sat back and let him sleep. Alex didn't even realize that his eyes had drooped until he was waking up the next morning to Jake's nose in very close proximity.

"Are you up?" He whispered.

"I am now," Alex mumbled, trying to move the pillow from underneath his head to over his face in order to block out his best friend.

"Nuh uh, girl. You are not leaving me alone today," Jake sassed as he pulled the pillow out of Alex's grasp. "We have plans and I am not going alone." Alex groaned and turned over, so Jake pulled the blanket off him. Alex whipped around to snatch the blanket before it flew away, but turned too fast on the narrow couch and ended up falling off. "Karma's a bitch when you ignore your friends, huh?"

So, thanks to a fear of karma, Alex was in the passenger seat of Jake's car an hour later with Taylor Swift's latest single blasted at the max volume to muffle Jake's badly belted notes. Alex leaned back lazily in his seat and watched out the window. A little bug in the corner of the window was trying for dear life to hold on against the wind created by the speeding car. Alex watched it until it was blown away.

Sleep that night returned to being practically impossible. Alex tossed and turned under his sheets. He tried removing blankets because he was too hot, but as soon as he did that he was freezing and shivering. Eventually he gave up and got out of bed. "This won't help my sleep schedule but I've already screwed it up so what's the harm?" He thought to himself as he threw an open button down on and went downstairs. He made himself a coffee in an old Starbucks mug that he had gotten from his mom for Christmas last year and sat on the kitchen counter, something he only ever did when his mom wasn't around to yell at him, while looking out the kitchen window.

It was so late that it had almost become early morning. Pale light from a half moon was illuminating the grass where the dew has just begun to set after living as little mist droplets for the night. Another tiny bug was on the window sill and Alex held out his finger so it could climb on. "Hello, Mr. Beetle," he sighed. "Can you not sleep either? It sucks. Maybe I'm becoming nocturnal. Are bugs nocturnal?" Alex rambled as the bug climbed over his hand before cutting himself off. He gently brushed the bug off his hand. "I was just talking to a bug.....like it was going to respond...." He quickly dumped his coffee and ran back to bed.

Except that cloudy Sunday morning, Alex didn't wake up in his own bed. He rolled over and bonked into a wall which woke him up. Alex blinked his eyes open and turned back around to face an open room. It looked like an old attic where all the wood was darkened and damp. There was moss growing in the corner and dust turned into mud dripping off the rafters. Alex wiped a drop off his arm and pulled his open button down closer around him to protect him from the chilly air. He stood up with a creak in his joints and went to the edges of the room to look for a door but had no luck. He was completely confused.

"This is probably just a dream..." He thought. "Just go with it until you wake up..." Alex walked to the other side of the room where he had woken up and sat down with his back against the wall and closed his eyes. His brow furrowed when he heard faint little beats of someone singing, though he quickly brushed it off as his own imagination. The floorboards creaked beneath him once and he cracked his eyes open before his heart was pounding out of his chest and he was falling. He felt like a baby who couldn't support it's head.

He hit the ground and the wind was knocked out of him. Alex coughed after feeling like someone had just hit him on the chest with a sledge hammer. The new room he was in was just as desolate as the last, but it had more light and what seemed to be newer, drier wood that made the room warmer. After catching his breath and gathering his wits on the floor, Alex stood up and brushed himself off. The singing had become louder and he was positive that he wasn't imagining it anymore. Alex was surprised that he hadn't been jolted out of his sleep by the feeling of falling. This time there was an actual door on the next wall and Alex walked over, wary of another trap door.

He stepped through the door onto the balcony of a modern home with a black and white theme. Everything was sleek and clean with a pale lighting. Sitting on a couch below, was that girl from the opposing table, Kirstin, absentmindedly singing the end of the songs as she looked straight ahead with her hands folded delicately on her lap. With a change of the phase in the song she was singing, her head snapped to a different position. "She looks like she is possessed..." Alex thought with a slight frown. On the last phrase, she whirled around and looked at Alex. He could feel his heart caught in his throat as he forgot to breathe. He didn't move until she turned back around.

And then the song started again.

Alex could move again and his only priority was to get out and escape. This place was terrifying and maybe if he got out of here, he would wake up and this would all be over. The singing became constant as he rushed down the stairs off the balcony and took the route to the door farthest away from Kirstin.

In this room, Kevin and Scott were sitting in the centre facing each other. There was no furniture, no decorations, and plain dark walls. Both men's legs were crossed and Scott's hands were on his knees; Kevin's were fidgeting as normal. Scott had his eyes closed while Kevin's darted around the room. He stopped on Alex. Alex himself stopped breathing, as if that would make him invisible, and slowly stepped back out of the room. He didn't want to bother a creepy guy like that, and Scott seemed more menacing than some anxious dude so he was glad to escape before Scott noticed.

As Alex was stepping back, the music started to build , speeding up, getting louder, becoming frantic and matching Alex's heart beat. He entered into a bedroom that had black onyx furniture and deep red accents on the bed covers and drapes over the posts of the bed. The black curtains were closed to make the room even darker. On the bed, tiny Mitch was straddling Avi and singing his part to the song as Avi hummed along. There were no lyrics, only sounds and humming. As the music reached its absolute high, Mitch let out a note with his arms above his head, arched back, and head thrown back. Alex couldn't take his eyes off him until he felt a wrenching sensation in his gut and doubled over, just to be pulled upright by Scott and Kevin, who had shown up behind him. Kirstin calmly stepped into the room as the music kept up intensely. Alex lifted his head to watch as the black furniture started to wither away and shrink. It seemed like they were melting into liquid but then Alex realized that is was moving.

Scarab beetles.

Hundreds of tiny beetles, black as the onyx they came from, were crawling towards him. Alex thrashed, screamed until his throat was raw, but the five didn't even seem to blink as they held him in place. The beetles crawled up his body and carried the burning sensation that Alex had felt the day before with them. He had once picked up a glowing ember when he was little and burned his fingers pretty badly. Now, his entire body felt like that with the added feeling of thousands of little prickly beetle legs. Alex stopped screaming when he felt one in his mouth. Now both his mouth and his eyes were clamped tightly shut.

Then the music quieted down and the sensations on his skin finally started to fade. Alex let out the breath he had been holding for so long, gasping and panting as he felt the sweet air fill his lungs again. He cracked his eyes open to see a black smoke peel off his body. Kevin and Scott were still holding him and Mitch and Avi had joined watching him with Kirstin. With a heaving chest, Alex timidly looked up at them. "Please..." He whispered weakly. The music started rapidly speeding up again and Alex squirmed, pleading for them to stop at the top of his lungs. Avi stepped forward and took the lead. With one low note that rattled Alex's bones, the world blackened out and Alex went limp .

He woke up on the couch that he had seen Kirstin on. He was in new black clothes and when he weakly pushed himself up, he noticed that his hands were entirely covered in scar tissue. He pulled up the sleeves on the black button down he had been put in to uncover more scars. It had to have been from the beetles earlier, there was no other explanation. There was still music on; he could hear the song ending. Alex's head shot up when he heard someone enter the room. Scott stalked towards him in his perfect black cardigan. Somewhere in the part of his brain where he wasn't absolutely petrified, Alex agreed with Meg's earlier statement. Alex scrambled as far back on the couch as he could to get away from Scott. The tall man only stepped forward and lifted Alex's chin in his cold hand to force him to meet his eyes.

In the background, Alex heard the last phrase of their song. There was a deep "bum" from Avi and a blink from Alex and suddenly, he was back in the courtyard at school. Alex stumbled and wiped his eyes. He had no clue why he woke up here instead of his bed or why he had just had such a horrible nightmare. "Jake. Jake will help," Alex immediately thought. He made his way through the halls on shaky legs and went to Jake's locker to find someone else pulling books out of it. "Excuse me?" Alex called. "Isn't this Jake Updegraff's locker?" The kid just gave him a really weird look and walked away.

"Mr. Updegraff is in the principal's office," a girl from a neighboring locker told him. Alex frowned. Jake was dumb sometimes but he would never get sent to the principal's office. Alex nodded and followed her instructions anyways. When he got there, a plaque reading "Principal Updegraff" was on the door outside the office. "The hell?" Alex muttered. Maybe this was Jake's idea of a prank and that's why he was in the office. He pushed in without knocking and faced a red haired adult working at his desk. The man looked up and his jaw went slack with surprise and his eyes widened.

"A-Alex?" The man stuttered. Alex looked absolutely confused.

"You're not Mr. Gilmore...." Alex said, shaking his head. "I was told Jake would be here..."

"I am here," he whispered.

"No, Jake is my age," Alex said. "He is in my year. Where is he?"

"I was in your year when you disappeared," Jake said slowly. "Fifteen years ago. You disappeared from your bed and never came back. As far as most of the town is concerned, you were declared dead eight years ago," he explained.

Alex's world spun. He had just dreamed that he was gone for a day. That's all. Even if it wasn't a dream, he was only gone for a day, maybe two at the most. Alex looked out the window to see the rest of the boarding school and town that he had grown up in and his heart stopped.

In the corner of the window, a small, black scarab beetle was crawling away from him.

 

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